mugetsu
by swoodilypooper
Summary: "'How can you handle it' she croaks. His expression turns to one of polite puzzlement. 'Handle what' Reyna looks at Him warily. 'The pain,' she whispers. For a second, as He remains silent, Reyna's terrified that He'll laugh at her for showing a moment's weakness. A crooked smile appears on His face. 'Easy,' He says with a shrug, 'I forget.'"


**mugetsu**

A sliver of moonlight filtered through the gap between the rotting wood of the ship, casting a milky glow on the debris strewn about the hold. Reyna crawled on all fours, approaching the origin of the light with a hungry look in her glassy eyes. Her small hands curled on the gap so that a sole finger escaped, and she relished the gentle ocean breeze as it caressed her finger. She gently closed her eyes and imagined the sensation applied tenfold to her entire body, lifting her up and letting her float in the air. Her hands extended, she would shoot up into the inky night, high above the waves, high above the ship, high, high, high.

The trapdoor above the stairs groaned as it was suddenly flung open, allowing delicious oxygen to flood into the rotting cavity that Reyna dwelled in. Reyna shot away from the side of the hull like a bullet, curling in the darkest corner she could find, wishing desperately that she could turn invisible. Heavy thumping came from down the stairs, and from beneath the crook of her elbow, Reyna opened a solitary eye to observe with fear.

A burly man wearing a linen shirt which had turned yellow from filth and overuse, open at his chest, and a pair of navy blue breeches emerged from the darkness and into the hold. Reyna whimpered and shut her eyes, praying that he wouldn't come after her. She heard the man grunt and a loud thumping noise followed causing Reyna to poke her head out from her cocooned arms. With a cry, Reyna threw herself forward to the limp form prostrated in the center of the hold, all concerns for safety abandoned.

"Hylla!" Reyna cried, her tiny hands curling onto her unconscious sister's ragged clothing.

Hylla was breathing, but only just. Her clothing, already messy to begin with, was torn in several places and Reyna could make out the blood stains blotting patches of the fabric. Unimaginable rage coursed through Reyna's veins and she looked up, her eyes misty with tears, and her teeth barred savagely at the rugged man observing the scene with an expressionless mask.

"I'll kill you," Reyna hissed, her nails digging into the damp wood beneath her, causing it to splinter.

The man surveyed her placidly for a second more before advancing suddenly upon her. Without warning, he slapped her savagely across her cheek, causing her to fall back in surprise. The man towered over her, his eyes reflecting no remorse, no pity, no mercy as he stared down at her.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, wench," he barked, his voice rough like sandpaper.

Reyna sat where she was, balefully clutching her throbbing cheek and ignoring the tears flooding her eyes as she stared back up at the man with all the hate she could muster. The man looked unfazed, studying her carefully.

"You're almost old enough - Captain Blackbeard and the men will be looking forward to it," he said cryptically before turning on his heels and leaving the way he came, up the stairs.

Reyna was too innocent, too young to know that he what he was implying.

The second the man left, Reyna crouched down next to Hylla, tending to her wounds as best she could by tearing pieces of their collective clothing to fashion bandages. Reyna worked through the night, trying her best to help, but she had no knowledge of the medicinal arts. Eventually, she gave up, settling for just resting Hylla's head on her lap. With trembling fingers, Reyna smoothed away some of the stray strands of hair pasted to Hylla's sweaty forehead.

With a snarl, she looked up at the trapdoor, her eyes glinting like broken glass. She swore that she would make them pay - all of Blackbeard's men would pay for what they had done, for ransacking Circe's Island, for killing most of the aides there, some girls who were like sisters to Reyna, and for torturing Hylla and herself. Reyna was going to make them rue the day that they had ever crossed her; she would exact her revenge. She just had to wait.

As the night lapsed into dawn and Reyna lingered in some purgatorial state of delirium, somewhere in the shadowy recesses of her memory, she saw a glint of orphic sea green eyes and a flash of golden blond. The boy and the girl! Reyna remembered. They were responsible for this, they were responsible for everything! Reyna punched a hole through the floor of the hold as she loosed a pain-stricken scream that seemed to contain all the hate in the world.

Reyna opened her obsidian eyes, but this time, a fire burned within them. She would make them pay. Reyna would hunt them down to the very ends of the earth if she had to. They would answer for turning her world upon its axis. She just had to wait.

~oOo~

"Halloa! Look at what we've got here, boys! Fresh meat!" Blackbeard jeered, brandishing his rusty cutlass high in the air. The rest of the crew cheered loudly, waving their weapons and stomping their feet. The terrified vacationers that had managed to survive the sudden ambush of the cruise line by Blackbeard and his crew quivered in fear.

Blackbeard approached the captain and grabbed the poor man by the scruff of his starched white shirt. "Look at him, boys! He's ripe with fear! Hah!" he roared at his crew, shaking the man to and fro before returning his gaze to him, a manic glint in his eye.

"Ye ever heard of the captain's law, filth?" he demanded. The frightened man looked at the imposing pirate with a petrified look on his face as he shook his head furiously no.

"No?" Blackbeard asked viciously. He looked at his crew dramatically, and they all returned his look with toothy grins, eager for what was to come. "Listen to him, lads! Don't even know the captain's law!" he bellowed, and the crew jeered, spewing foul insults.

Blackbeard turned to face the man one final time, a malicious smirk on his face. "A captain must go down with his ship!" he roared, and the crew cheered again.

"Pl-Please, no!" the poor man protested. Blackbeard cackled before thrusting his cutlass into the man's stomach. The man looked down at his stomach in shock before Blackbeard picked him up as easily as a sack of potatoes and threw him into the ocean. He turned around to be met with rowdy cheers from the rest of the members of his ship.

Reyna and Hylla had watched the spectacle with terror in their eyes as two huge crewmen clamped their meaty hands down on them, forcing them to watch. Blackbeard laughed and jeered with the rest of his crew as they tormented the remaining captives with suggestions of extravagant methods of execution. Then Blackbeard saw Hylla and Reyna quivering on the deck and another malicious smirk, reminiscent of the one that had lingered on his face as he ran the other captain through, slid across his face.

"Bring the witches forth!" he demanded.

Soon Reyna and Hylla were forced onto the center of the deck, shaking as the entire crew yelled profanities at them. One of two tried to grope the sisters who timidly warded off the advances as Blackbeard approached them both. The moonless night was absolute in its darkness, enclosing the world in an inky black stretching in every direction.

Blackbeard brandished two cutlasses and presented them to Reyna and Hylla, both of whom stared dumbly at the weapons in their hands. The infamous pirate walked leisurely around the girls, both as still as statues, before asking in his booming voice, "What say we make these wenches apart of the crew, men?"

The question was answered with calls of "Aye, Cap'n!"

The pirate swaggered in front of them, a dark, twisted smile on his face. "I'll give you a choice, witches. Either kill these captives or get keelhauled into the sea!" he said gleefully.

Reyna and Hylla stared at him in shock. Blackbeard instructed the men to form a ring around the captives and the two girls. He stalked forward and untied the captives, all of whom stood dumb with fear. "Run 'em through or sleep with the fishes," Blackbeard commanded.

Calls of "Yea! Stick 'em like a pig!" and "Gut'm like a fish!" rang out across the deck.

"Go!" Blackbeard bellowed.

As one the two sisters obeyed, moving like dancers, fluidly in the night. They didn't even know what they were doing, what they had done, until all the prisoners save one lie bloody at their feet. The last prisoner, a blond haired girl their age, shrank into the corner of the deck, trying to hide.

"Finish her!" Blackbeard commanded gleefully.

Reyna stood uncertainly as Hylla stepped forward, her face an impenetrable mask. Reyna's eyes widened as Hylla brought her arm up to strike.

"Pl-Please! Don't hurt me!" the girl squealed, trembling in a corner.

Before Hylla could finish her stroke, Reyna caught her arm. Hylla looked sidelong at her sister, her face a perfect frigid mask. "No hacer. No la mates, Hylla. Usted no es una lingotera como ellos," Reyna beseeched, trying to find some vestige of humanity on her sister's face.

"Do it or I'll gut you both!" Blackbeard barked.

"Esta es la forma que tiene que ser, Reyna," Hylla said softly.

Reyna looked at her sister with a searching gaze before she forced her arm down. Hylla understood and backed away as Reyna approached the blonde girl, mimicking Hylla's frigid mask, betraying no emotion. A flash of memory passed Reyna's mind and she remembered the blond girl from Circe's Island, the one that had ruined everything. A surge of fury coursed through Reyna's veins, and the blond girl watched in horror as Reyna's sword lifted in the air.

"Pleas-" the girl began, but she never finished.

Slicing her blade, Reyna cast away the droplets of blood clinging to her cutlass. She had never felt more hollow in her life, and she wanted to cry, but when she turned to face Blackbeard and his crew, her face was a perfectly composed icy mask that betrayed nothing. The only colors that existed were black, the color of Reyna's heart, and red, the blood stained on Reyna's hands.

As Blackbeard and his crew cheered, Reyna turned to Hylla who met her steely gaze with a look that simultaneously conveyed sympathy and sorrow. In that moment, Reyna knew that Blackbeard had made two very vital mistakes. The first, he had given Reyna a reason to hate him; he had tortured her and her sister with impunity, without remorse. The second, he had given Reyna a weapon; he had trained her to kill in cold-blood, without any mercy or compassion. Blackbeard had two very vital mistakes and it was going to cost him his life.

~oOo~

_Thump!_

Reyna stared hollowly at Hylla's form which had just been flung down from the trap door like a sack of potatoes. Quickly, Reyna approached her sister and took her hand in her own, smoothing away the stray strands of hair plastered to her blood soaked forehead.

"Reyna," Hylla gasped, staring up with wide eyes.

Lifting Hylla's hand, Reyna kissed her sisters knuckles tenderly. "I-I don't know how much longer... how much longer I'll survive... how much more, *gasp* I can take," Hylla croaked.

"Be strong, Hylla," Reyna whispered intensely. "Our time will come."

Hylla choked back tears. "I'm filthy, Reyna... filthy... they... they use me... they're inside me, Reyna! Inside me!" Hylla sobbed, a manic glint to her eyes. She grasped at the fraying fabric of her younger sister's clothing. "I can feel it under my skin, like a disease, like a parasite- oh!" Hylla cried out.

Reyna watched dumbly at her sister, the noble, immutable Hylla completely broken, a quivering, sobbing mass floundering in the dark hold, and an unimaginable power coursed threw her veins.

"Cierra los ojos. Nos desharemos de esta pesadilla pronto..." Reyna whispered, and Hylla nodded once before passing out.

Silently, Reyna stood and with a completely blank mind, she walked stealthily up the stairs leading to the trapdoor. Once she reached it, she closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to her mother, Bellona, hoping for once that she wouldn't forsake her.

Tentatively, Reyna pushed against the door and let out a shaky breath when it gave. Silently, she swung the door up and vaulted out of the hold like a panther. Her eyes scanned her immediate surroundings and saw that many of the crew members were asleep either in hammocks or simply passed out on the wooden floors. The stench of rum clung to the entire deck, and it would have made Reyna scrunch her nose in disgust if she wasn't so focused.

Reyna slid towards the nearest guard, took his cutlass, and slit his throat. She went around the deck silents, like a grim specter, an angel of death, killing the men that had tortured her and raped her sister for almost two years. She was about to finish clearing the deck when the patrolman rounded the corner and saw her standing with her cutlass pointed straight down over a crew man. Reyna met his gaze and plunged the blade down, piercing the man's heart.

The startled crew member gave the alert; there were going to be pirates swarming the deck very soon, but Reyna was undeterred - she was beyond fear. She vowed that she would never ever be afraid again.

Her blade stabbed the patrolman just as ten pirates burst from the quarters located near the prow. Reyna moved majestically, like a deadly dancer, weaving in and out of the men, each stroke dealing mortal wounds to her enemies. Every appendage of her body became a blur as she struck her tormentors down with impunity.

Five more men burst out, Blackbeard among them. They surveyed the carnage and noticed the anorexic, anemic looking girl with eyes like broken glass basked in the glow of a red moon. Reyna flew at them with her blade, killing two men before they could even get their weapons out. The third she disarmed before lopping his head off. The fourth, the man she had personally promised to kill, attempted to retreat like a coward, but Reyna was still faster, driven by a manic bloodthirsty obsession for vengeance.

Cornering him, Reyna stared at him, her face a frigid mask like she had taught herself. "I told you I'd kill you," she said calmly.

With him lying in a pool of his blood, there was still Blackbeard to deal with. Reyna found him attempting to pry the trapdoor open, probably to take her sister hostage, but by some stroke of divine providence, he couldn't prize it open. Reyna calmly walked up to him as he drew his blade. He swung wildly at her, but it was child's play to disarm him. He fell down and Reyna towered over him like a child of the devil, bathed in the glow of a blood red moon.

Blackbeard managed a twisted smile. "You've learned well, witch. You have... no mercy, no... no empathy. You're a true warrior now," he said.

Reyna regarded him placidly before she cleanly cut his stomach, causing his entrails to spill out. "Gatear a cuatro patas, cerdo," Reyna whispered.

The pirate floundered, clutching at his entrails as he attempted to crawl away from the vengeful girl. Reyna followed him and hacked off one of his legs, fueling her macabre bloodthirstiness. Blackbeard let loose a painful scream, but Reyna continued to follow him as he attempted to approach the side of the deck. She hacked off another leg, and enjoyed the satisfaction it brought her.

Reyna crouched down besides him as he dragged himself now with one arm, still clutching at his stomach. "Crawl for me," she cooed, enjoying how Blackbeard was trembling. Reyna had never felt so powerful in her life.

It was several long and undoubtedly agonizing minutes for Blackbeard before he finally reached the side of the ship. Reyna watched on as the pirate grasped at the wood and hurled himself overboard. She stared down into the black sea lapping against the ship for a few seconds before she went to explore the ship to find medicine for Hylla. As she walked, she pondered Blackbeard's words. Had she truly succumbed to their level of vulgarity, their level of apathy? Reyna reasoned that there was no reason to feel sympathetic, and that she had merely administered justice. She was content with that conclusion for the time being.

~oOo~

"So. So you're leaving?"

"It would appear so, yes."

"Why?"

"I feel at home here."

"I don't."

"You don't need to stay if you don't want."

"I don't want to."

"Reyna, don't be that way."

"What do you mean?"

"You know _exactly_ what I mean."

"I honestly don't."

"Look, we may not be as happy as you always dreamed we would be, but for the first time, let's just allow ourselves to be whatever it is we are and that will be better. Okay? I think that will be better."

"Hylla, you're so full of shit."

"..."

"Well good riddance. I'm _glad_ you're leaving too. Now I can just worry about myself."

"Reyna..."

"Don't. Just don't."

~oOo~

The Imperial Gold gladius went whistling in the air, arcing high above the blond boy before firmly embedding in the ground. Reyna extended her blade, stopping just short of the panting boy's neck. Her obsidian eyes pierced his electric blue ones coldly, the crescent moon hovering above her. She was a queen, a queen of ice, and this _boy_ was not going to get the better of her. The Roman legionnaires stood dumbly, wondering how it was that their leader had lost so badly and so quickly. Such things were unheard of.

"You have lost, _boy_," Reyna spat.

The boy managed a grin and extended his hand forward. Instantly, Reyna drew back her blade, about to lop his hand off before the boy shrugged to himself and helped himself up off the ground. Cautiously, she lowered her blade, and watched carefully as the boy grinned at her again.

"You're really good," he said, his tone conveying his admiration.

Reyna merely sheather her blade. It wasn't much of a contest; she had so vastly outclassed the boy that it had been a rather embarrassing spectacle. "Have I proven myself, _boy_?"

He blinked. "Yeah, of course. It seems you're one hundred percent Roman. I'll show you to your new house," he said, coming forward to place his hand on her shoulder.

"_Don't touch me, boy._"

His hand hovered a few inches away from her shoulder before his fingers curled in on themselves, and swung to hit his knee softly in a casual gesture. "Uh, right, I'm sorry. Let's get going."

~oOo~

Jason disappeared, not that Reyna cared any, and He came in his stead. Reyna felt a trill of excitement course through her veins when she saw Him again. Oh, she was going to enjoy what she did to Him. Finally, she would have her revenge.

Reyna stole away in the middle of the night and broke into His house. It took her but minutes to find him, sleeping on his bed, without any worry on his face, no remorse for what he had done. Her hand instinctively curls around her Imperial Gold dagger, and slowly, slowly, slowly, she slides it out of her sheath. The fool sleeps on, his raven locks messy and tumbling down his face carelessly. Reyna wants to wake him - she wants to see the light in his eyes fade. She wants to see the surprise, the shock, the betrayal, the pain, the agony, but most of all, she wants to see the remorse, a flicker of recognition in his sea green eyes.

Silently, she approaches him, her hand extended. Gently, almost lovingly, she probes him - she needs him awake for this. Her dagger is poised above his chest, itching to plunge downwards and serve its purpose. Her hand lightly touches his shoulder as she shakes him softly.

"Wake up, _boy_" she whispers.

The boy opens his eyes slowly, his eyelashes brushing his eyelashes like butterfly wings. He's obviously groggy, judging by the amount of times that he blinks in the darkness. It's a moonless night, and the darkness is petrifyingly impenetrable, but this is nothing new to her. She was born in the darkness, molded by it, forced to embrace it at a tender age. Reyna had no need for the light.

He finally focuses on her, and to Reyna's disappointment, he doesn't react to the dagger hovering above his chest. For a few seconds, the two remain silent - Reyna wondering whether stabbing someone so unresponsive would be satisfying enough, He remaining thoroughly unreadable.

At long last, He speaks. "Are you going to kill me?" He asks calmly.

Reyna's lips curl downward into a frown. "No. I want to burn you. I want to take from you what you hold most dear. That's what I want."

He nods, _nods like he understands_, and Reyna bristles, her frustration mounting. She rearranges her face to the icy cold mask she favors most, the one she perfected years ago aboard the pirate ship. He turns his head away from her, and Reyna's dagger hand trembles in irritation.

Then He looks back and smiles, crooked like his heart. "Too late."

~oOo~

Reyna watched Him walk around New Rome, all pretty smiles and gentle manners. She hates Him. She hates Him so much it festers inside her. She wants to hurt Him, hurt Him like he hurt her. The thing is though, she doesn't know how, and it infuriates her.

She wants Him to hurt deep, deep down, so much that he'll never forget. She doesn't want to kill Him; His punishment must be more severe. She wants to hack off His limbs one by one, and have Him crawl, begging her to kill Him. She wants Him to ache, to quiver every time that He so much as saw her. She wants Him to weep like a child in front of her, without any dignity. Images of her last night on Blackbeard's ship resurface, and she smiles a twisted smile when she remembers how powerful she felt, how right it seemed when those that wronged her suffered.

The problem is that she _can't_ hurt Him. Sure, she could cut Him and no one would bat an eye, but that's not what she wants. She wants Him to hurt deeper, but when she realizes that He has lost all of His memories, she grows so terribly envious she can't stand it. Reyna wishes that she could forget that damn pirate ship; she wishes it with every fiber of her being. However, she knows that He has lost something precious by losing His memory; He's lost things that He wants to direly remember.

They each had something that other desperately craved, and that's what drew Reyna to Him like a magnet. She approached Him sitting alone on a hill in New Rome, staring up at the sky by himself. He turned to her with a pretty smile, and Reyna forced herself to stop tightly gripping the pommel of her dagger as she sat besides Him.

Reyna opened her mouth to say something when He spoke first. "I've done something to make you hate me, haven't I?" He murmurs lowly.

Her laugh is barked out, grating and bitter. She wants to say something caustic to injure Him, but the look of despondency on His face makes her hesitate. He smoothly snatches her hands into His own, and Reyna can't gather the energy to pull away; His touch electrifies her.

With beseeching eyes, He looks at her, saying, "I'm sorry. I know it's not enough because I can see the hurt in your eyes, but it's all I have. I don't even _remember_ what I did to you, so how can I ever make amends?"

Reyna has no answer to that, so she stays silent. She doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that He's made a logical argument; logic won't avenge her horrid past - hurting Him will. However, she knows that it's counterproductive to maim Him when He wouldn't have the ability to show remorse for actions He doesn't even remember perpetrating. In the moonless night, Reyna can see just how lost He truly is, and for the briefest of instants, her frozen heart quivers in sympathy. He had lost His entire identity. Reyna couldn't compete with that. She realizes now that when He said "Too late" all those nights ago, he had meant it.

"How can you handle it?" she croaks.

His expression turns to one of polite puzzlement. "Handle what?"

Reyna looks at Him warily. "The pain," she whispers.

For a second, as He remains silent, Reyna's terrified that He'll laugh at her for showing a moment's weakness. A crooked smile appears on His face. "Easy," He says with a shrug, "I forget."

~oOo~

Their nocturnal vigils become commonplace, much to Reyna's disdain. However, there's something about Him that she can't escape from, pulling at her like some sort of whirlpool, drawing her ever closer. Maybe it's because that for once, someone has actually felt a pain that was horrible enough for Reyna to acknowledge. To her, the rest of the citizens of New Rome were much too _soft_; they didn't know pain as intimately as she did and they never would. He, however, seemed to be almost as miserable as she was, and it was this mutual misery, she reasoned, that drew them together.

At times they would remain silent, peering up at the twinkling stars high over head. Some nights, they would talk the entire night away about anything and everything, watching in a companionable silence as the sun crept over the horizon. He would tell her everything He could remember about His old life, and Reyna would listen. She learned of a girl named Annabeth that plagued His every thought, piercing through His apathy like a blade. Reyna knows in her heart of hearts that it is the same girl from Circe's Island all those years ago.

There were rare times when Reyna herself would speak, but never about the ship - _anything_ but the ship. She tells Him of Circe and her Island, of Puerto Rico and a bitter ex-Green Beret of a father, of Hylla and midnight melodies sung in darkness. It takes a long time for her to trust Him enough to say anything at all, but it happens all too quickly, she finds.

One night, Reyna tells Him about the night sky, about how she can't imagine how big the universe is and how many stars there are. She wonders how they could call the Olympians "gods" when they obviously don't have control over galaxies. She wonders if there are whole species like the Olympians roaming planetary systems so far that the light still has yet to reach them.

He listens quietly the entire time as she word vomits. Reyna suddenly stops mid-sentence, "-what does that mean? How can we live under gods when there might be beings more powerful than they are-" She abruptly turns on her side to look at him to see if He is still listening. When she looks at Him, she notices that His expression is conflicted almost. There's a hard, blazing quality to it that she has never seen before. Reyna wonders if He'll say anything.

Instead, He smiles at her, for real this time - not crooked like before. Reyna realizes that her heart is thundering in her chest, and she hopes that He can't hear it. Slowly and silently, He takes her clammy hand into his own warm one, and lies back without a word. She has no idea what in the world is happening to her, and she's never been this terrified since Blackbeard's ship. She's waiting for Him to grope her, greedily fumble for her like the pigs on the ship, but He doesn't.

Reyna doesn't want to believe that _He_, of all people, was different. She figures that it would be far more simple for Him to be like the rest of his vile gender because then she would have a legitimate excuse to hate Him, but He isn't and it hits her all at once. _He's not them_ - not the naive citizens of New Rome or the predatory sharks on Blackbeard's ship - and it hits her so hard, it brings tears to her eyes. He still doesn't say anything; He just lets her cry it all out, still just holding her hand. The Queen of Ice slowly began to thaw. She falls asleep shortly after because she's never trusted someone like this since Hylla, and she likes how her hand is still in His.

Her last cogent thought before her eyelids flutter shut are of how warm His calloused hands are.

~oOo~

The ship comes out of the sky and the words flutter on the tip of tongue to order the legionnaires to blast the ship out of the sky because she knows who's on that ship. One look at the excitement on His face and she knows that she can't, no matter how much she wants to. It devastates her when she realizes that she's never been able to get Him that excited about _anything_, but that girl smiling down from the bow of the ship _is_ able.

Finally the ship touches ground, and she comes running out of the ship, obscenely affectionate and disgustingly sentimental, before _judo flipping_ Him. Reyna can't make out the words they exchange, but His smile is wider than she's ever seen it, so she walks away in disgust.

When He comes waltzing up to their hill that night, Reyna wants to kill Him all over again, but the guilty look on His face stays her hand. Her heart sings when she realizes that He chose to come here tonight rather than spend time with _Her_. He takes His usual place as Reyna takes hers, and as always, His hand fumbles around on the grass before finding hers in the darkness.

Neither of them say anything that night, but it doesn't take long for Reyna to realize that He has chosen and it wasn't her. The expected sensation of betrayal never comes, which leaves her feeling oddly empty. Reyna figures that this isn't anything unexpected, and maybe that's why it doesn't hurt like it should, but there's a voice in her head that says it isn't that simple. The only thing she knows for certain is that this is goodbye, and that's enough of a reason to try to relish this time together.

So they sit there, waiting for a sign. It comes in the wee hours of dawn, when the night is at its darkest. A solitary star shoots across the horizon, and His hand tightens around hers. She squeezes back, content to sustain the tranquility of their surroundings. Reyna's not naive enough to believe that shooting stars are anything special, but she makes a wish all the same; she wishes to heal.

It takes her a while to realize that she's crying. By then the star has passed, and Reyna hurts so bad, she's convinced she's dying. "Fuck, this hurts so much," she gasps.

He looks at her hard. "I know it hurts: that's life. If nothing else, it's life. It's real, and sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's sort of all we have."

Reyna glowers at Him. "I hate you."

"I know."

"I love you."

"I know."

Silence.

"You're an asshole, you know that?"

A crooked smile. "I've been told."

"Just making sure that it sinks in. After all, you're quite dim."

"We can go back to the part where you tell me you love me now."

"Too late."

"Too late?"

"Yeah, way too fucking late."

"I'll miss you, Reyna."

"Liar."

He stood up as a pale orange became to diffuse across the sky, pointedly ignoring her statement. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

Reyna pursed her lips, pressed her hands against the ground behind her, and leaned back. Her eyes were far away as she whispered. "Yeah, me too."

* * *

**A/N: Mugetsu means "Moonless Night" in Japanese, which is a poetic sentiment that I just adore. The entire story takes place during night because ain't nobody got time for the day. Percy doesn't have a name in this story because I want him to be more of a specter that Reyna hates rather than an actual person. I published this before and took it down, but now I feel like putting it back up again. **

**I decided to go back to my roots with this one. You know - angsty, dark, hauntingly poetic stuff - the usual. The beginning is depressing, but the end, oddly enough, is actually quite light. I tried my hardest to keep it canon pairing-wise, but Jason can just disappear so Reyna didn't like him in the story. I was sorely tempted to make it Reyna/Percy again, but I have a feeling you all would strangle me then. I really like the ending dialogue for some reason. Don't mind me. As always, if you liked it, please: Follow, Favorite, and Review!**

Translations (I used Google Translate, so don't kill me): Don't. Don't kill her, Hylla. You're not a pig like them.

This is the way it has to be, Reyna.

Close your eyes. We'll be rid of this nightmare soon.

Crawl on all fours, pig.


End file.
